Culture Dumps

On Episode 99 we sit back for a minute and relish in the glory of our near approaching milestone: 100 episodes. We appreciate all of the support that we have received thus far. Keep on dumping folks!

This episode’s guest is Violet Sky. Violet is what we call an “era influencer,” someone who lives their live as though they were in a different decade and gives the public a look into their life via social media. Not only is she a 1980’s historian and revivalist, she is also an amazingly talented artist whose music we cannot get enough of.

“Louie Louie” is an iconic Rock anthem that holds a prominent place in American pop culture. Recognized as one of the most famous rock songs of all time, it has been covered over 2,000 times. The song’s enduring popularity, however, was accompanied by controversy due to its widely misunderstood lyrics, which led to investigations by the FBI in the 1960s. The Kingsmen’s shambolic recording of the song, characterized by its raw and gritty sound, played a significant role in shaping the garage rock genre. 

This is the first installment of our new series within the world of dumps. We have covered many toy crazes over the years but this is going to be a bit different. Rather than focusing on toys that were extremely popular and then faded into obscurity, we are going to tell the tales of the most dangerous and in some cases, deadliest toys to hit shelves. For our first volume of banned toys we are discussing the toxic Aquabeads and the incredibly notorious lawn darts.

Dave Sirus is an Emmy nominated, Writers Guild Award winning comedian who has written for comedy giants like SNL and Triumph the Insult Comic Dog. His latest project is “Bupkis,” a show he created along with his best friend and writing partner Pete Davidson. Ryan and Dave discuss Dave’s career, his new show, what it’s like when your friend becomes one of the most famous people on the planet, and their time together in the LA art-punk scene.

*we ran into some connectivity issues during this interview and there will be some rough patches.

Ryan is joined by Eric D to discuss the infamous Wendy’s finger in the chili scandal. When a woman found a piece of a human finger in her chili the whole country cringed, but what started as an unfortunate and disgusting mishap became one of the most bizarre scams in tort law history.

This is a deep cut dump for sure. The Barbarian Brothers were the body building identical twins whose string of late 80s and early 90s b-movies launched them into dump stardom. We know many of you might not have heard of these guys, but sometimes we gotta just dump for us! We also announce the launch of our new webstore!

This week we go back to 1990 to discuss one of the most bizarre trials in music history. After an attempted double suicide by two young friends, metal legends Judas Priest were put on trial for alleged subliminal messages in their music that were believed to have caused the tragedy. The trial was as ridiculous as the claim.

This trial was part of an ongoing cultural movement to censor musicians in the 80s (PMRC, 2 Live Crew, NWA, Satanic Panic). The heavy publicity of this trial introduced many to the practice of backmasking; listening to music played in reverse to attempt to find hidden messages.

Jeff Nucera is an accomplished television producer and documentarian who came to us by way of past guest Eddie Schmidt. Jeff is in the process of making a new documentary about a Weird Al themed burlesque troupe, a dream considering his life long obsession with Weird Al. Besides his latest endeavor, we discuss his work on The Osbournes, Girls Next Door, and much much more!

This week Ryan is joined by Eric D of Methsyndicate to discuss the immensely unfortunate early 2000’s video series “Bumfights.” What began as a shitty skateboard video quickly turned into a global monster. Worse than what was captured on camera for the videos are the many copycats that followed. File this under, really sad and fucked up shit.